Sweet, lovely, innocent rich girl Catherine Miles (nicely played by stunningly comely blonde knockout Elvire Audray) celebrates her 18th birthday with her parents in the Amazon jungle. Catherine winds up being abducted by a savage and primitive tribe of head hunters after her parents are brutally murdered. Poor Catherine gets stripped naked, smeared with smelly oil, becomes the love slave of a vile lout who defiles her, tries to escape, and eventually adopts as best she can to her dismal situation to the point where she falls in love with noble warrior Umukai (handsome Will Gonzales). However, Catherine still wants to escape and exact a harsh revenge on the killers of her parents. Director Mario Gariazzo relates the grimly arresting plot in a sturdy and compelling manner. Silvano Ippoliti's stark, no-frills cinematography gives the film an effectively gritty semi-documentary look. Franco Campanino's sweeping majestic score likewise hits the pleasing melodic spot. The acceptable acting, okay dubbing, suitably hideous graphic gore (several ghastly decapitations rate as the definite gruesome highlights),steady pace, breathtaking verdant jungle scenery, surprisingly poignant love story, and the plentiful female nudity (Audrey looks especially delectable sans clothes) are all up to speed as well. One of the better and more satisfying of the many Italian cannibal splatter features made back in the late 70's up until the mid 80's.

Another example of cheap exploitation, this should be of interest to cult movies fans due to the fact that a) it's Italian and b) it's a jungle-set adventure featuring cannibals. However, those expecting another CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST will be in for a bit of a disappointment with this sometimes-amateurish effort which adopts the style of what I like to call a "schlockumentary" - ie. the events that occur in the film all claim to be true, and the movie even goes so far as to incorporate supposedly real crime scene footage of a mortician holding up a severed head - it's so blatantly fake that I find it hard to believe that anyone could have been taken in by this. In any case, although a tribe of cannibals are mentioned, there's no gut-chewing in this movie. Instead, throughout the typical jungle antics, we get repeated cuts to courtroom footage where the lead character Katherine Miles is on trial for the slaughter of her uncle and aunt. This adds an original, if unconvincing, framework to what is basically another exploitational blood-and-skin jungle shocker.

The lead is played by the otherwise unknown Elvire Audray, a young and nubile blonde who spends the entirety of the film topless - an authentic facet of the movie, of course, and not an excuse to show some naked female flesh. The setting, the native tribe, the music and the style of filming all make for an authentic feel to the movie, ironically only ruined by the intrusion of the badly-acted courtroom sequences which pop up periodically. At least the framework of the movie gives it a structured plot, so that you actually feel that it's going somewhere instead of middling along aimlessly like some of these jungle shockers do. Although pretty, Audray can't act very well, and the cast are generally wooden or ham actors. The only exception is Alvaro Gonzales, whose tribesman Umakai is a genuinely noble and heroic figure thanks to his strong, almost mute performance.

The movie is pretty gory as a whole so it comes as no surprise that it has been cut in its UK release. Nonetheless, bits of gruesomeness remaining that the film has to offer include bloody deaths by blowpipe darts; heads being chopped from corpses (ironically, this is cut when it happens, but left in during a later flashback to the event); real-life animal violence; forced rape; a man having his face eaten off by ants, flies and worms; a man being eaten by a crocodile and the culminating double axe murder with Katherine as the culprit. Rotting severed heads also play a bit part in the film's narrative. There's also one of those lovely grub-eating interludes which Lenzi saw fit to include in his influential CANNIBAL FEROX film. Exploitation fans might get a kick out of this sometimes sleepy expose of jungle life thanks to the atmosphere and scenic setting it offers, but there's no real horror here - only some shoddy gore effects.

This is Italian schlock and cannibalism at its best. Ok that might be an exaggeration, but this still is quite good and well done for an exploitation movie. Even if it tries to go with the true story card. Even having "real" footage of the "real" woman the movie is supposedly about.

Ah the shock and horror. Also the blood, guts and nudity. Those savages you may say. And then it turns out that one of them is not so savage as we thought. That's what she said - no literally, that what she said. Believe it or not and of course also getting the strong masculine man, that the woman is somehow attracted to (can't seem to be able to resist overall). But again, since is a case of she said ... what really did happen? Tough to say - and was all the depravity necessary to come to the conclusion the movie leads up to? Well for the movies purposes, of course it was ... for the viewer ... maybe not so much. Just don't be too easily offended